‘He’s never hinted to you that anything happened between him and Francis?’

She shook her head slowly. Clarke had bent a little, hands on knees, so her face was at the same level as the woman in the chair.

‘There is another scenario, though, isn’t there?’ she said. ‘All that money coming to you unless it became public knowledge you had a lover. We’ve not dug back too far into Chris’s mobile phone history, but we will, and I’m betting your affair has been going on a while. Maybe you’re just more skilled at hiding that sort of thing than your husband was.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘If Francis Haggard knew about you and Chris, and if you suspected he was going to bring that knowledge into play … I mean, the way he pointed at you in the hall that day, as if letting you know – you’d either to persuade Cheryl to go back to him and drop the case, or he’d maybe speak to your husband, giving him some much-needed ammo. Now in that scenario, you’d be desperate for something to happen to Francis, wouldn’t you, anything that would shut him up? You’d maybe exaggerate what happened when he burst in here, in the hope of getting Chris Agnew’s blood up.’

‘Isn’t it Chris you should be asking, not me?’

‘He’s on his way to the station. Maybe I should put the two of you in a room together. As of now, he’s saying he didn’t do anything.’ Clarke paused. ‘And I’m inclined to believe him.’

‘What?’

Clarke straightened up and turned towards the window as if addressing her words to it rather than Stephanie Pelham. ‘There’s one scenario I’ve left out, but I think it bears airing. That pointed finger – yes, it was a warning, and one he knew needed no words, because it was personal … very personal. Say you’d had some sort of fling with Francis, say that’s the secret he was willing to expose. Now, if nobody except you and him knew, you couldn’t take that to your lover, couldn’t trust him to do something about it …’

‘That’s absurd. You must see you’re making no sense.’ Pelham had taken a grip of her phone and was squeezing the life from it. Her eyes were on Clarke, who was shaking her head.

‘Ever since I saw the footage, I’ve known there was something about it that I wasn’t getting, some history between the two of you. So no, Stephanie, I don’t think it’s absurd.’

The door flew open. Cheryl Haggard had obviously crept up the stairs and heard at least some of the conversation.